1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to maintenance and safety devices for hydraulic elevators, and particularly to an elevator alert that emits an audible alarm when too much hydraulic fluid from leakage collects in an elevator pit.
2. Background Art
It is commonplace to utilize hydraulic cylinders for passenger or cargo raising and lowering within an elevator environment. The elevator car is raised and lowered by the below located hydraulic piston and cylinder assembly, which is typically located below grade or ground level in an elevator pit. Usually, with this type of elevator system, the hydraulic cylinder has a seal to retain the hydraulic fluid within it when the piston is raised and lowered. When the seal becomes faulty and leaks, unwanted amounts of hydraulic fluid escape the system. The fluid leakage is a potential environmental hazard if it flows into the environment.
Currently, the hydraulic fluid leakage is retained within a channeled annular ring just below the seal to catch the escaped fluid. The annular ring has a drainage hole to displace the collected, escaped fluid so that it does not flow over the ring. The drainage hole is connected to tubing or other conduit whose free end is typically placed in a large bucket to collect the fluid, which is gravity fed into the bucket. The bucket is simply placed on the ground of the elevator pit. Service technicians attend to the bucket from time to time to dispose of the displaced fluid in an environmentally appropriate manner.
However, this system of collecting displaced hydraulic fluid in an elevator pit has the drawback that the technician must remember to periodically check the bucket to ensure that the bucket contents do not overflow. If there is an abnormally large amount of escaping hydraulic fluid from the elevator mechanism, the bucket may overflow before the technician's scheduled maintenance check.
It would be desirable to have a signaling device to automatically warn elevator passengers and maintenance personnel when too much hydraulic fluid accumulates in the elevator pit.
Thus an elevator alert solving the aforementioned problems is desired.